Terminator Salvation: Cold War

CHAPTER TEN

2018

The dogs barked loudly enough to raise the dead.

Molly’s eyes snapped open. Instantly alert, she sprang from the bed even as Geir stirred beneath the covers. The frantic baying, coming from outside, sent a jolt of adrenaline though Molly’s veins.

She raced across the shadowy bedroom and threw open the shutters. It was still night outside; the sun was nowhere near rising. Darkness shrouded the forgotten mill town. The barks sounded as if they were coming from the south, maybe from over by the playground. She squinted into the blackness, but even as her eyes adjusted the other buildings blocked her view.

A high-pitched yap was cut off abruptly.

Geir sat up in bed. Darkness hid his face, but not the tension in his voice.

“What is it?”

“Trouble,” she guessed. It was possible the dogs were reacting to a stray animal—perhaps a bear or wolf— wandering too near the camp, but she doubted it.

We should be so lucky.

The jarring staccato of gunfire instantly confirmed her worst fears. No way would the lookouts be opening fire on wildlife like that, especially not in the wee hours of the morning. There could be only one explanation.

Skynet had found them.

Molly had to know what was happening... and now. Fumbling in the dark, she snatched a walkie-talkie off the top of a chest of drawers and thumbed the speaker button.

“Security, this is Kookesh. What the fuck is going on out there?”

Static crackled in her ear, then an agitated voice could be heard over a din of angry shouting and gunfire. The shots echoed through the window as well, lending them an unnatural stereo effect.

“We’ve got a breach!” She recognized the raspy twang of Tom Jensen, a logger-turned-guerilla. He was supposed to be patrolling the southwest perimeter. “A machine! T-600, I think!”

Molly’s heart sank. Just what I was afraid of.

“Keep it busy!” she barked into the receiver. “I’ll be right there!”

She flung the walkie-talkie onto the bed, then started scooping her clothes up from the floor. The inky blackness frustrated her.

Where the hell are my pants?

A match struck loudly just a few feet away, igniting the kerosene lamp by the bed. A flickering golden radiance lit up the bedroom, much to Molly’s relief. She glanced over to see Geir standing naked by the lantern. He blew out the match.

“Thanks!” she grunted, pulling on her slacks. “I’ve gotta get down there.”

“Hang on.” He retrieved his own garments, which were draped over the back of a ratty easy chair. “I’ll be right with you.’

Molly shook her head vehemently.

“Forget it. You’ve got to get that plane out of here.” Geir’s vintage plane, Thunderbird, was kept in a camouflaged hangar down by the glacier. “We can’t afford to lose it.”

“Crap!” he swore. “I hate it when you’re right.” He grabbed the pistol that sat by the bed and tossed it in her direction. “Do me a favor. Be careful, okay?”

She thrust the sidearm into its holster, and shot him a wry grin.

“It’s the machines that need to worry,” she said, flaunting a bravado she didn’t feel. Moments later her M4 carbine was locked and loaded. “Just keep T-bird away from the metal.”

Sleigh bells jangled as she yanked open the door. She ran downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. Excited yelps greeted her; she had forgotten about the huskies sleeping by the stove.

Crossing the murky office, she pulled open the front door. An arctic blast of wind invaded the cabin. The cold hitting her face jolted her awake faster than the strongest coffee.

“Scoot!” she ordered, motioning to the dogs, anxious to give them a chance to escape. “Go on, scram!”

The huskies obeyed, and she followed them out into the freezing night air. The isolated camp was spread out around her. A single gravel road connected most of the mill’s sheds, plants, storehouses, and bunkhouses, which the Resistance had converted to its own purposes. The old ammonia leeching plant was now an armory and communications center. The powerhouse was a garage.

A fourteen-story breaker mill dominated the hillside further up, with a rickety wooden tramway that had once carried raw ore to the top of the building, where it had been dumped into the chutes and crushers below. To the east, rusty metal tracks led to a dilapidated railway depot that hadn’t seen a locomotive for more then eighty years. A crumbling wooden bridge spanned a wide, ice-covered stream that fed the glacier below.

Opaque black clouds kept the moon from relieving the nocturnal gloom, and Molly kicked herself for not remembering to grab a flashlight.

Lights flared inside the buildings, barely visible through the shutters, as the sleeping camp was shocked awake by the hair-raising tumult. Startled cries and curses escaped the ramshackle bunkhouses that were home to most of the Resistance fighters and their families. Frightened faces appeared in the windows. Babies wailed behind flimsy wooden walls. Molly’s heart went out to her people whose well-earned rest had just gone to hell. She wanted to assure them that they were going to be all right, that she had things under control.

But that would be a lie.

Despite the stygian blackness, she had no trouble figuring out which way to go. Gunfire, screams, and shouting drew her onward. A blind woman could have followed the trail to where the fighting was. Rifle in hand, she sprinted across the camp. Her loose hair blew in the wind.

Taking a shortcut between the mess hall and the machine shop, she emerged from an alley into an open junkyard that had been converted into a makeshift playground for the camp’s children. A swing set, slide, merry-go-round, and jungle gym had been cobbled together from scraps of discarded mining equipment. Like the upside-down extraction vat that had been converted into a children’s playhouse. Snow-covered sawdust cushioned the ground. An authentic Tlingit totem pole—carved by Ernie Wisetongue himself—watched over the area. The brightly colored visages of Raven, Beaver, Killer Whale, and Wolf perched atop each other on the pole.

Some distance away, on the other side of a sundered barbed-wire fence, towering pines marked the southwest border of the camp. The dense forest had always been a buffer zone sitting between the rebel outpost and the outside world.

Tonight that barrier had failed.

Muzzles flared in the night as a handful of sentries sought to repel the invader. The strobe-like flashes revealed a battle-scarred T-600 on a rampage. The Terminator looked as if it had been through the wars. Deep scratches and scorch marks defaced its carbonized endoskeleton. Congealed blood caked the cold metal. A single blood-red “eye” glowed malignantly above its leering death’s-head grimace, and only patches of melted rubber skin and polyester were still fused to the metal. And was that a large yellow tooth stuck in its skull?

Molly experienced a sudden flash of deja vu. Had one of the T-600s aboard the snow plow survived the avalanche?

Who the hell knows? she thought. Fucking machines all look the same. Even so, she gritted her teeth at the thought that the machine might have followed her all the way back to the camp.

Flying lead sparked off the Terminator’s metal chassis and cranium. Reaching the playground, the machine wrenched the merry-go-round from the ground to use as a shield, effortlessly hefting the 300-pound cast-iron disk. It pushed forward against the gunfire like a bipedal bulldozer, holding the merry-go-round out in front. The inexorable advance forced the frantic soldiers to fall back, rapidly losing ground.

Why isn’t it shooting? she wondered, and that cinched it. It must be one of the ones we buried in the avalanche. It has lost its weapons. But that didn’t stop the invader from following its primary directive.

A foolhardy sentry attempted to get a better shot by climbing to the top of the slide, but the Terminator barreled straight into the structure, toppling it over onto the unlucky sniper. Pinned and unable to defend himself, the human whimpered in pain, his rifle having fallen out of reach.

“My leg!” he cried out. “It’s broken!”

Who? Molly thought. It was too dark to make out his face.

A second later, a fractured leg was the least of his concerns. The T-600 trampled over the mangled slide to get to the downed human. Bones and aluminum crunched in unison. A heavy titanium foot stomped on the soldier’s head. It exploded like an overripe melon.

Molly winced, but there was no time to mourn—or even to find out the poor bastard’s name. Spotting Tom Jensen at the rear of the defenders, she rushed forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. He started in surprise, then saw who she was. Wild eyes blinked in recognition.

“Chief!”

“Give me a sitrep,” she ordered. “How many are there?”

“Don’t know,” he blurted. Cold air puffed before his lips. “Maybe just the one. Maybe more that we haven’t seen.” A bushy red beard failed to mask his distress. His eyes bulged. Spittle sprayed as he gesticulated like a madman. “It came out of nowhere. Thank God for the guard dogs!”

Molly didn’t ask what had become of the canines. She didn’t want to know.

“Sound the alarm,” she said. “Full evac. We’re out of here!”

Jensen scowled.

“You sure about that? Maybe there is just one.” He pumped a smoking shotgun, eager to avenge his fallen comrades. “One T-600 against all of us—we can take it! You know we can!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Molly said. “Even if it is alone, it’s bound to have uplinked our coordinates to Skynet by now. The machines will know where we are.” Her eyes scanned the sky, half-expecting to see a Hunter-Killer swooping down from the clouds. “There’ll be more coming, bet on it.”

The burly ex-logger got the picture.

“Roger, chief!” He scurried away to carry out her orders, leaving Molly in charge. But he paused to call over his shoulder. “You show that murdering wind-up toy what for!”

“Count on it!” she promised.

She elbowed her way to the front of the fight. The Terminator kept on coming, as persistent as Geir’s goddamn proposals. A nervous soldier backed away fearfully, on the verge of breaking rank.

“It’s hopeless! Look at that thing! Nothing can stop it!”

“Keep shooting!” Molly ordered, and he flinched at the sound of her voice. “We need to buy time for the rest of the camp to get away. Aim for the back and shoulder joints!” According to John Connor, those were the T-600s’ most vulnerable parts. “Hold the line!”

Nailing the Terminator’s weak spots was easier said than done, though. Its charred black endoskeleton blended in with the night, rendering it all but invisible. The only light came from muzzle blasts and a handful of wobbly flashlights and kerosene lanterns.

A bullet ricocheted off the merry-go-round, winging another lookout. He dropped to his knees, clutching an arm. A lantern slipped from his fingers and rolled across the ground. The T-600’s single optical sensor turned away as it tracked the lamp.

Veering from its path, the machine lowered its circular shield long enough to grasp the lantern, then the glowing red lens scanned the vicinity. Its soulless gaze came to rest on a woodpile that stood outside the back entrance of the mess hall. The stacked logs made an irresistible target.

Fuck! Molly thought. She knew exactly what was going through the machine’s CPU.

The Terminator flung the lantern at the woodpile. The glowing missile arced over the playground before crashing into the logs, shattering with a splash of kerosene. Bright orange flames erupted as the wood caught fire. Quickly the blaze leaped from the logs to the adjacent building. Decades-old wooden timbers went up like kindling. A crackling roar began to compete with the blaring guns followed by cries of alarm.

A sentry rushed forward to try to fight the blaze.

“Leave it!” Molly barked. This camp was history anyway. They might as well leave Skynet nothing but ashes. “The metal’s our enemy, not the fire!”

At the sound of her voice, the Terminator turned its head toward Molly, perhaps identifying her as the leader. Lucky me, she thought, opening fire on the T-600. The recoil from the M4 bruised her shoulder, and the handguard rattled annoyingly. Nevertheless, high-caliber slugs vented her fury.

The Terminator swung its shield to block her assault. The carbine’s bursts dinged against the cast-iron. It marched toward the blazing woodpile. Hefting the shield with just one hand, it snatched a burning log from the fire. Then it turned back toward the defenders, brandishing the log like a torch.

Planning to set more buildings on fire, Molly guessed. Pyromania must be part of its programming.

Smoke billowed from the windows of the burning mess hall. The kitchen door banged open and panicked soldiers who had been bunking above the dining facilities came charging out of the building in various stages of undress, only to run head-on into the invader.

“Watch out!” Molly shouted, but too late.

A startled man clutching an AK-47 stumbled backward into the people behind him. His gun went off in his grip, firing uselessly into the center of the shield. Adjusting its strategy, the Terminator smashed the merry-go-round into the mob. The stolen playground ride hit the fleeing humans like a battering ram, splintering bone.

The intruder let go of its shield and began to swing the burning log like a club. It batted another soldier in the head, snapping his neck and setting his face on fire. The man’s AK-47 landed at the Terminator’s feet.

The T-600 dropped the torch in favor of the firearm.

“Shit!” Molly exclaimed. “It’s got a gun!”

Seizing the weapon, the Terminator wasted no time opening fire on the human defenders. A middle-aged former stewardess took a bullet to the forehead, while a redneck teenager dropped to the snow clutching his side. Spurting blood looked black in the dim light.

The other fighters scattered and dived for cover.

Turning away from the burning mess hall, the T-600 looked again for Molly. She saw its cyclopean gaze turn back toward her, only seconds ahead of the barrel of its gun.

Time to move.

She ducked behind the totem pole. Bullets tore into the carved red cedar, vandalizing Ernie’s Native Alaskan designs. The ammo chipped away at Wolf and Beaver. Wooden splinters went flying. Sorry, Ernie, Molly thought. The artist had put a lot of work into his creation. I owe you one.

Peering out from behind the pole, she tried to fire back. Setting the M4 for controlled three-round bursts, she squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

She whacked the loading mechanism against the wood, but it still refused to fire. Molly couldn’t believe it.

Of all the times for the fucking thing to jam!